Control Room & 24/7 Chairs

A 24-hour chair is engineered for continuous multi-shift use, which is a fundamentally different requirement from a chair used seven hours a day by one person. Control rooms, dispatch centres, security operations and emergency services need seating that holds up to constant occupancy by operators of different builds.

Chair Dinkum is the exclusive Australian distributor for the Flokk group, which owns RH. The RH Secur24 in this collection comes through us in Australia, as do its spare parts, its test documentation and its warranty assessment, which is handled here in Sydney rather than routed offshore. More on the group and its eleven brands at Flokk Australia.

The range in this collection

Nine chairs from four makers, each sold for continuous or multi-shift use on its maker's own terms. The makers design them for control rooms, security and observation workstations, dispatch, hospitals, call centres and other 24-hour operations; what each maker says about its chair is quoted in the table below.

• RH (Flokk): the RH Secur24, developed for 24/7 use in control centres, and the RH Logic 220 Elite, the 24/7 version of the Logic 220. Both are certified to BS 5459-2.
• KAB Seating: the Controller, Controller Base, Director II and Executive, all AFRDI 142 certified to 160 kg for multi-shift use. See all KAB Seating chairs.
• Buro: the Persona 24/7, certified to 185 kg for multi-shift use, and the mesh-back Metro II 24/7, certified to 160 kg. See all Buro chairs.
• Dal: the ControlMaster 24/7, which Dal guarantees to 200 kg.

What actually differs in a 24/7-rated chair

The differences are in the components rather than the appearance. Four things separate a genuine 24/7 chair from a good task chair.

• Gas lift and mechanism cycle testing. A chair occupied around the clock sees three times the sit-downs, height changes and recline cycles of a single-shift chair. Heavy-duty 24/7 models use reinforced mechanisms and heavier gas cylinders for that reason. The RH Secur24 (sold as the BMA Secur24 before BMA Ergonomics merged into RH in January 2025) has an extra-strong steel-structure mechanism and a 680 mm base; the Control Master 24/7 uses a six-star aluminium base and a full steel inner frame to both seat and back.
• Weight rating. This is the number tender documents most often omit and the one that most often causes a warranty argument later. Published ratings across this collection range widely, higher price does not predict a higher rating, and a maximum static load is not the same measurement as a certified maximum user weight.
• Upholstery abrasion resistance. Continuous occupancy wears fabric at the front seat edge and the backrest shoulder line first. The Control Master is supplied in Gabriel Fighter, a heavy-duty commercial fabric, or in black leather. On RH chairs, check that the fabric is an RH approved 24/7 fabric, because upholstery outside that list falls outside the warranty.
• Cleanability. A chair handed between operators every eight hours has to tolerate repeated wipe-down. Ask what cleaning agents the supplier permits before you write a cleaning protocol around a chair, because solvent damage is not a warranty claim.

The question nobody asks: how many hours a day does the warranty cover?

This is the sharpest test of a supplier, and most cannot answer it.

Flokk warrants HAG chairs for 10 years in normal use up to 9 hours per day. Beyond 9 hours per day, the term is 5 years. A HAG chair specified into a rotating 24-hour roster is therefore covered for half the headline term from the day it is installed. Nothing is wrong with the chair and nothing is hidden in the warranty; the problem is that the headline number gets quoted in a tender response and the hours clause does not.

RH, also part of Flokk, publishes the same two-term structure at a different limit. The RH standard term is 10 years, normal use up to 9 hours per day, users up to 150 kg. Separately, Flokk states that it “provides a 5 year warranty for RH chairs that are approved for control room 24/7 use”, and the RH Secur24 is one of those chairs — so it carries 5 years. Flokk also states that upholstery is not covered under these terms unless it is an RH approved 24/7 fabric. Read the two terms together rather than treating 10 as the better number: a 5-year term written for round-the-clock duty and a 10-year term that steps down past 9 hours per day are not directly comparable.

Ask every supplier the same question in writing: what does your warranty say about hours of use per day, and what is the term at 24-hour occupancy? Put the answer in the evaluation matrix.

Warranty, rating and certification across this collection

Each column is a different thing, so read across rather than comparing one number. The maker’s weight figure is the manufacturer’s own; the certified load is the user weight an independent body (Furntech-AFRDI) has tested for multiple-shift use; and the warranty is shown at the hours of use it actually covers. Certificate numbers and validity dates are on each product page.

One clarification on the Secur24 figure, because it is the one buyers query most. The 234 kg figure comes from legacy BMA literature: the Secur24 Basic and Secur24 Exclusive flyers published before BMA Ergonomics merged into RH stated “Maximum (static) load 234 kg”, and Flokk’s current RH Secur24 factsheet does not repeat it. It is a maximum static load, not a certified maximum user weight tested to ANSI/BIFMA X5.1. RH separately publishes a general maximum user weight of 150 kg across its range, and does not currently publish a Secur24-specific certified user weight. Those are two different measurements rather than a contradiction, but they are not interchangeable — so if a rated capacity is a mandatory requirement in your specification, contact Chair Dinkum and, as Flokk’s Australian distributor, we will confirm the current certified figure for your application directly with Flokk before you submit.

Australian standards: AFRDI 142 and AS/NZS 4438

Two Australian certifications appear in this collection, and they answer different questions.

• AS/NZS 4438 is the Australian and New Zealand standard for height-adjustable swivel chairs. It tests strength, durability and stability at levels matched to how hard a chair will be used; Level 6, the most severe, is intended for settings such as control rooms, police stations and heavy industry.
• AFRDI 142 is Furntech-AFRDI’s rated-load certification for heavier users. A chair is certified for users up to 135, 160 or 185 kg, for single-shift use (about 40 hours a week) or multiple-shift use (significantly more). Furntech-AFRDI tests above the rating it certifies.

The KAB and Buro chairs here hold joint AFRDI 142 and AS/NZS 4438 Level 6 certificates for multiple-shift use: 160 kg for the four KAB chairs and the Buro Metro II 24/7, and 185 kg for the Buro Persona 24/7. The RH chairs are certified to European and British standards instead, including BS 5459-2 for heavy-duty and 24-hour seating, and the Dal ControlMaster has no published certification. If your tender requires AFRDI or AS/NZS 4438 by name, that narrows the choice to the KAB and Buro chairs. Furntech-AFRDI publishes current certificates on its Blue Tick list, and our guide to office chair weight ratings explains how to read them.

Availability, delivery and trying a chair in Sydney

Each product page shows current availability. KAB chairs are ordered from KAB for each order, with a typical lead time of two weeks. We deliver Australia-wide, and for a whole room we quote the project and confirm lead times for the options and upholstery you choose. The RH Secur24 can be tried at our Pyrmont showroom, Shop 1, 209 Harris Street, Monday to Friday by appointment; call 02 9640 0642 before you visit to check which other control room chairs are on the floor.

Specifying for a control room

Points worth writing into the specification rather than leaving to the supplier’s discretion:

• Minimum weight rating, stated in kilograms, with the standard it was tested to and whether you mean user weight or static load. ANSI/BIFMA X5.1 and EN 1335 are the two in play; the Secur24 is listed with EN 1335, GS and BS 5459-2 — the British standard for heavy-duty and 24-hour office seating — while the RH Mereo range cites both EN 1335 and ANSI/BIFMA.
• Warranty term at your actual hours of occupancy, not the headline term.
• Cycle test evidence for the gas lift and tilt mechanism, and whether the supplier can produce the test report rather than a marketing summary of it.
• Upholstery abrasion rating (Martindale or Wyzenbeek, whichever the mill publishes) and the approved cleaning method.
• Headrest where operators monitor screens for extended periods without leaving the chair.
• Adjustment range across the roster. Three operators of different builds share one chair in 24 hours, so seat height and seat depth range matter more here than in a single-user office.
• Whether test documentation can be supplied at all. Make this an explicit tender question. It separates suppliers quickly.

We can supply test documentation where the manufacturer provides it — and for the Flokk brands, as Australian distributor, we source it directly from Flokk — and we quote on volume for fit-outs. Full warranty terms for every brand we carry are set out at our warranty page. If you are still scoping, browse all ergonomic task chairs or contact us with your roster pattern, operator size range and cleaning regime and we will tell you which of these fits — and where the answer is that none of them does.

Guides and buying advice

Written for people specifying seating rather than buying a single chair.

• Specifying 24/7 control room chairs in Australia
• Do you really need a 24/7 control room chair?
• Office chair weight ratings in Australia: what they mean and who certifies them
• Office chairs for tall people in Australia: a fit guide
• Fabric, mesh and leather compared
• How to choose office chairs for a small team

Related ranges

• RH Secur24 and RH Logic 220 Elite — from RH, part of the Norwegian Flokk group.
• KAB Seating — the Controller Base, Controller, Director II and Executive, all AFRDI 142 certified to 160 kg for multi-shift use.
• Buro — the Persona 24/7 and Metro II 24/7, AFRDI 142 certified for multi-shift use to 185 kg and 160 kg.
• HAG chairs and the HAG Tion range — also Flokk, for single-shift office use.
• Executive chairs and monitor arms for the rest of the workstation.
• Commercial fit-outs — volume quoting, test documentation and tender support.